The grid, the square and the church:
Architectural performances to present the new landscape of America

"Performance stands for an elusive entity that it is not but
that it must vainly aspire both embody and replace"
Joseph Roach. Cities of the Dead
 

Performance during colonialism has to deal with an extraordinary manifestation of power. This force is presented after the conquest as a mechanism that contributes to the formation of the "new" Indies. This mechanism of power implies control, for that reason I decided to present this term as a significant tool in the process of colonization while explaining its own performance upon the territory. The aim of this paper is to present performance through the act of imposition. Imposition is most of the time accepted, it is most of the time a forceful mechanism of power that attempts to declare and to decree specific rules.
After the arrival of the Spaniards, the American territories (local towns) that were occupied by native Indians suffered an important variation in their own political system of organization and moreover in their environment in terms of aesthetics . The Spanish empire was demanding the colonizers to (re)configure and to (re)construct the actual native landscape according to the norms, traditions and costumes required for satisfying the population of the old world. Is in this aim that the ordinances created during the second half of the 16th century will have a principal and mandatory role for describing what should the territory be and how it has to look like. The purpose of these external policies was to promote the organization of the New World in order to satisfy the Spaniards, which were the incoming elite allowed to perform power.
Performance will be understood here as a process of transformation, which is basically promoted by the display of power (not necessarily meaning popular confrontation and resistance, but participating with and for it). Performance will be exposed without trying to criticize what was "new" but rather, it will be somehow explained by the description of such "new". Consequently my intention for this paper is to highlight the physical and spatial "product" that the Spaniards performed onto American territory.

To begin with the argument of this paper, I would like to quote Joseph Roach's concept of surrogation, which is explained by the relationship between: memory, performance and substitution. He suggests that these three concepts draw a dialogue that attempts to re-create or re-construct the phenomena of history. Roach's argument explains how memories have become embodied in and through performances. My argument proposes to understand issues of identity in relation to the perception of a certain environment through time and place (Roach explanation for understanding surrogation). This paper though, is focused to present architectural impositions that became representative as examples of what should be the "new territory" and how does it have to look like. The work also has the aim to "see" the evidence of such transformation process. In other words, will try to expand Roach's concept of surrogation through the perspective of urban planning, it is also trying to "perceive" identity through the historical phenomena of a city environment that represents a society.

The method for mapping the phenomena will be a zoom in three different urban dimensions: the grid (scale of territory), the square (scale of community), and the church (scale of the body itself). We can see the Spanish performance upon the Aztec's territory through concepts of embodying and replacing. Both terms are concrete manifestations of space in order to present the imposed reality of the new city environment. While I say this, I am suggesting the reader to understand that the Spanish empire was encouraging a literal imposition and a literal occupation of the land upon native's traditions.

The paper will focus its arguments in the phenomena of the re-creation (landscape). I will present Spaniards establishing the new by using the mechanisms of ordinances. They were clear norms to follow for (re)configuring the environment of the "new".

I will start with an image (as an introduction image) that was generated by the Spanish empire and that coincidentally (re)present the dialogue/confrontation of this two different structures, the one (re)presented by the Spaniards and the one (re)presented by the Aztecs. They both are displays of specific territorial power.

fig. 1

Texupa Map. 1579
0.
Mapping the territory:
Spaniards versus Aztecs

A close and attentive analysis of the map of the city of Texupa, Mexico (fig. 1), ordered by the King of Spain, Philip II 1579, poses the possibility to see the kind of mixed cartography that appeared in the second half of 16th century. The map itself could be taken as ground that depicts somehow a certain hybrid dialogue between colonizers (Spaniards) and the colonized (Aztecs). The image presents issues about territory and it's occupation through two different systems of spatial structures: the rigid and the non-rigid order. As the representation is from a plan view, we can detect that both mechanisms of marking territory are confronted or over imposed, we could detect that the two structures are opposed just because one is orthogonal and intellectual (Spanish), and the other one is arbitrary and non-intellectual explicitly (Aztec). It is obvious that the straight lines are the opposite of the curved ones (the paradox is that because they are both systems of "lines", they can maintain a dialogue, this dialogue has to deal with displacements). The rigid structure customizes the displacements while the non-rigid leave displacements free.
While Spaniards where introducing a "new" pattern for developing the towns in America, Aztec's were confronted by the ordinances promoted for the new territory. The representation of this main Mexican territory in itself incorporates the main European element of urbanization: the grid, and the main Aztec structure of occupation, the paths. The Texupa map represents the footsteps followed by native population. The arbitrary lines that are confronting the Spanish grid perhaps represent Mexica's culture of free displacement upon their territory. However, those lines are not only the structures that allowed native people to travel through their land; they are also representing a radical (random) sense of their space. Body scale is represented in paths. Open territory is also represented in their paths. The grid seems to be a dense, logical and abstract conception of the territory occupation. That's why it seems to confront the arbitrary lines. The grid does not describe the body traces and their respective displacements upon the land rather it is near to be an unlimited structure for planning that allows anything in a simple structure: the block. In other words, it seems that those "free" paths in contrast with the "rigid" grid, represent a state of freedom that was not longer available to Mexican civilization after the arrival of Spaniards. The grid, and consequently the regulations upon the territory, can be understood as practice of power imposed by Spaniards. The Texupa map is a demonstration of imposition of one structure over the other (Spaniards upon Mixica). This territory representation is a literal gesture of land's manipulation.

Aztecs were aware of their domains, in terms of their territory, that is to say, the triple alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan. An alliance formed by the core of what is often called the Aztec State, the most powerful and fer-flung empire in native North America (Harvey, 1991). Besides, they were also aware of the fact that their territories were a fertile space (in all of the sense of the word) where Spaniards could keep control. As history shows, while the same practice was being performed with the Incas, in the land of Cuzco, Aztecs were dealing with Spaniards to survive as a culture with traditions and beliefs. It proves that the "rigid" grid was in total opposition to their natural system of beliefs and environment configuration (heaven and earth). I want to emphasize that the grid purpose was to norm the popular displacement and domains through the imposition of orthogonal lines, which basically controlled the land, differentiating the public from the private spaces as well. The image of this Texupa map was constructed after the Spanish landscape imposition.

Spaniards' paintings of the new town also emphasize other "architectural anecdotes" in the map, for instance, there are the footsteps paths crossed by the structure of a temple, the Catholic Church. Consequently there is throughout the entire map, a tension of dialogue/confrontation of these two different structures, of this two different mechanisms of beliefs. The random native structure upon the territory is totally open to the possibilities of a physical dialogue within the characteristics of geography. The Spanish conception of the grid is basically monolithic as an regular imported product for the development.
Description of the three different territorial performances:
 

The grid (scale of territory)
 

Fig. 2
The grid upon Mexico City. 1671
 
 
 

Fig. 3
Tenochtitlan. 16th century

"The Spanish crown actively promoted urban planning: it urged the royal administrators and conquistadors to avoid swampy or insect-ridden terrain and admonished them to ensure the availability of adequate water and arable land before settlement". The basic pattern was a grid that organizes the center of the political, religious and social power (fig.2). Spanish representation of Aztec's Tenochtitlan (fig. 3) only introduces the main temple and the paths in a kind of irregular and un-rigid grid. The important fact here is that the Spanish grid carries within itself the three main elements to configure the city planning by using the resource of a blocks (100 meters aprox.). Streets, squares, buildings, contribute to keep a safeguarded spatial organization under a tested and controlled model. Those architectural elements were the norm to present the new landscape imposed upon the native's territory of America during the process of colonization.
Spaniard's impositions are explained through the policias, as we can see on Philip II's regulations on town building for the Americas, Spaniards were primarily focused [as it is exposed there] in the such rigid constitution of the environment. Then, the following decisions were in relation to the buildings that were supposed to be in the perimeter of the main square, the church, the government palace and the hospital. All that "new" constructions were elevated for the purpose to "present" for both the Spanish community and for the native population of America, the unquestionable presence of a new power coming from the Old World (which was at the same time the elite that was controlling such "new" reality). The structure of the grid was developed by the old continent just in order to have the control of a new mixed emerging society (consecuently producing the hybridity of castas), composed by both communities.

The grid basically was encouraged the Spanish domain upon certain piece of territory. It constituted the practical (re)presentation of the policias. Those policias established certain controlled power upon the countryside that was still largely beyond the Spanish jurisdiction, because we have to realize that Spaniards where only showing their power upon the native larger towns (Mexico and Peru), there was still a lot of territory without such grid, therefore without explicit Spanish control. The new urban space was the platform to perform such imposed display of power. I can argue that the grid is not only imposed onto one specific territory, rather, it is a must in every new location decided to be part of the new empire.

On one hand, that kind of imposition seemed to be in harmony with the ideal Spanish power, it justified such radical and normalized regulations. On the other hand, such imposition seemed very naïve since it should be admitted that every territory was different in geographical terms and more relevant, the population that occupied them were also different. Nevertheless, for Spaniards the token was all about urbanizing without making distinctions. For them native population, was simple indígenas, they did not carry the same distinction as Spaniards have in their social-structure.

The grid was central element every time Spaniards settled down whether to colonize or fund a city with all of their regulations: It was part of the landscape, as scenery is relevant to declare the presence of the public and the private within the territory of such new environment.
 

The square (scale of the community)

Fig. 4
Corpus Cristi procession (c. 1700). Oil on canvas.

Fig. 5 Fig. 6
Pole Dancers Dancing for the coronation of Monctezuma king.

Although Mexica population should had their own spectacles (fig.5 and fig. 6), I am not sure about where did the pole dancers or other kind of ceremonies took place as they are both popular manifestation. As the representations doesn't explicitly show the traditional environment of a square where popular activities could take place, I trust that they must be performed on a public place open to the massive population. In these I can say that, although principal plazas where not part of the traditional environment of native indígenas, at least they were in essence the place to have those acts. For sure the community needed a place if not as exactly as a traditional square at least similar in terms of size and open territory to the public.
The main square promoted by Sponiards usually at the center of the grid served as the political and religious focus of community life (fig.4): "A large plaza at the center of the city served as a marketplace and hosted religious and secular ceremonies. The plaza was not to be smaller than two hundred by three hundred feet or larger than three hundred by eight hundred feet. In major administrative centers like Lima, Mexico City, Bogotá and Guatemala, the cathedral, governor or viceroy's palace, and city council building bounded the plaza".

The principal square was the place where all main public activities of Spanish people took place. I have to say that the perimeter of the square was reserved to the Spanish elite. Religious manifestation, as for example, Corpus Cristi celebrations (fig.4) where if not the main activity, at least one of the most spectacular events in terms of production and the expenditure for what it signifies in itself. The square served as an environment for the interchange in terms of commerce and in terms of population's encounters (races). So that, the performance of its architecture is evident and not arbitrary, the square seems to be an imposed space for socializing, as in the old Greek.

The square allows population to present their social status inside the society as a Spaniard, Mestizo or Indio. The place, as a public territory was open to everyone, that's why the reunion for presenting specific society costumes took place there. The main square allows popular manifestation of the community; it functions as a literal stage. The size of the square was important in terms the amount of events that were supposed to support. The population saw this place as a territory for the community.
The construction of squares was extremely important to present the social power of the town. In this sense I see that principal urbanizations have in their plazas imposing constructions (in terms of size and appearance), while in small towns the relevance of a building is only mentioned by its presence within the border of the square. The description of a principal plaza is declared in the ordinances of Philip II: "From the plaza shall begin four principal streets: One (shall be) from the middle of each side, and two streets from each corner of the plaza; the four corners of the plaza shall face the four principal winds, because in this manner, the streets running from the plaza will not be exposed to the four principal winds, which would cause much inconvinience" Ordinance #114

The church (scale of the Body)
 

Fig. 7
Cathedral on the main square.

Fig. 8
Pre-conquest Temple.

Holy constructions were perhaps the most important buildings for both, Spaniards and Aztecs. Those constructions after the arrival of the Spaniards were settled around the main square were the most impressive secular and religious buildings were located. These constructions, because they were built by the perimeter of the square, had the opportunity to relate the spiritual with the pagan (the church was most of the time related to an open esplanade that was the popular square). "Urban churches and convents were immense bastions towering over their surroundings and laden with ornate decoration. The finest ecclesiastical buildings demonstrated the centrality of religious sentiment in colonial culture as well as the Church's great wealth". Although those buildings were sometimes architectural replicas of the Old continent, the cathedral in Mexico City was the largest and most splendid in America (fig.7).
In Peru for example visitors noted: "... the cathedral, the churches of St. Dominic, St. Francis, St. Augustin, the fathers of Mercy, and the Jesuits, are so splendidly decorated, as to surpass description.... The altars, from their silver.... The walls... are hung with velvet or tapestry.... The whole church is covered with plate, or something equal to it in value; so that divine service is performed with a magnificence scare to be imagined....". The power of church was without a doubt since the period of the conquest very prominent; if it was not for its religious power, at least it was for its spectacular appearance. The presence of the church is perhaps more relevant than the presence of the "other buildings" that contribute to generate the structure of the grid and the square, although all of them are necessary to configure the platform of a city environment. The church promotes beyond the construction itself issues of beliefs, massive encounters, and popular traditions that are in a sense the characteristics of a community in terms of identity.

The situation of the church inside the grid and therefore inside the main plaza is radical because it is a strategic point to control the urban territory. The presence of the church declares the power upon a territory and communities (land and its people). The church is the best (re) presentation to impose though the delight of the eye the power of a catholic system that basically distorted native's soul identity. The church is not as literal as an implanted control but it is a sort of eloquent transmitter that communicate through the conscience and the soul, because of that the scale that it uses to promote the performance of colonialism (is the most complex in terms of personal individuals.

Conclusion:

Colonialism was made possible, and then sustained, as much by cultural technologies of rule (norms) as it was by more obvious and brutal modes of conquest that first establishes power on foreign Indias territories. The cultural effects on colonialism have too often been ignored or displaced into the inevitable logic of modernization and world capitalism, but more than this, it has not been sufficiently recognized that colonialism was itself a cultural project of control upon America's landscape. The performance imposed by Spaniards is a non-explicit testimony of imposition. One can understand that they were constructing the landscape with the knowledge and the technology that they had (as in opposition with native indigenas). It is in this sense that the imposition is not barbaric, but we know that what they were doing was beyond the decoration and the implementation of a new territory, in fact what they were doing was to distort and transform the Mexica culture. In this terms the re-creation (Roach concept) is radical because the implementation through a "new" thing signifies basically the presence of a substitute. The church, the square and the grid were environmental elements that were in charge to re-shape native culture. They were in Roach's terms the substitution elements for perceiving a new environment that somehow was also shaping the identity of indigenas.

Colonial knowledge enabled the territory conquest that was produced by it, in certain way I can say that knowledge was what colonialism was all about. Knowledge is power. The mechanism to (re)present a culture upon the territory is performance of such power.

Finally, a most radical and "invisible" argument can be sustained if we think in De Certeau's explanation to experience space. He uses the idea of practice to perceive places therefore identity of spaces. The grid, the square and the church are quotidian impositions that are perceived daily and because of that we have to co-exist with them. In this terms the practice of those places make the Spanish imposition "invisible".

Bibliography
* Roach, Joseph. Cities of the Dead. Columbia University Press, New York. 1996
* Hoberman, Louisa and Socolow, Susan. Cities & Society in Colonial Latin America. University of Mexico Press. Usa. 1986
* Fray Toribio de Benavene: Motolonia. Historia de los indios de la nueva España. Alianza Editorial. España. 1988
* De Caso, Alfonso. El pueblo del Sol. Fondos de la Cultura Económica. Mexico 1962
* Rojas, Jose Luis. Mexico Tenochtitlan Economía y Sociedad en el siglo XVI. Fondo de la Cultura Económica. Mexico. 1986
* De Certeau, Michel. The practice of Everyday life. University of California press. Usa. 1984
* The Hispanic America, Historical Review. Vol. 5 #2. May 1922
* Burkholder and Johnson. Colonial Latin America. Oxford University Press. New York. 1998
* Cohn, Bernard. Colonialism and its forms of Knowledge. Princeton University Press. New Jersey 1996
* Morse, Richard. "Urban Development" in Colonial Spanish America. Cambridge University Press. New York. 1987
* Fraser, Valerie, The architecture of Conquest. Cambridge University Press. New York. 1990
* Crouch, Dora and Garr Daniel. "City planning ordinances of the laws of the Indies" in Spanish city planning. MIT. Usa. 1982
* Kagan, Richard. Urban Images of the Hispanic World 1493 - 1793. Yale University Press, Usa. 2000
Images
Fig. 1
Map of Texupa (1579). Real Academia de la historia, Madrid.
This map, prepared in conjunction with the RelaGeográficas ordered by Philip II in 1576.
Fig. 2
Nova Mexico (1671). Engraving. John Ogilby, America (1671).
The first published view that represented Mexico City as opposed to Tenochtitlan only appeared in 1671. Ogilby borrowed in from Arnoldus Montanus who in turn had adapted it from a view in the collection of Johannes Vingboons.
Fig. 3
Map of Tenochtitlan , 16th century.
Map in "Published letters of Cortes" 1524. In Teatro Mexicano: Historia y Dramaturgia. Ed. Armando partida. Consejo Nacional para la cultura y las Artes, 1993.
Fig. 4
Corpus Cristi procession (c. 1700). Oil on canvas.
Museo Pedro de Osma, Lima.
The painting offers a double image, as it represents both its civitas, united here for Corpus festivities, and its urbs, represented here - metonymically- by the cathedral and the plaza mayor.

Fig. 5
Pole Dancers. Códice Borbonico. El libro del Ciuacoalt: Homenaje para el año del Fuego Nuevo, Mexico: Fondo de la Cultura Economica 1991
Fig. 6
Bailes en las fiestas de coronacion del rey Monctezuma, Xocoyotzin.
Teatro Mexicano: Historia y Dramaturgia, II Teatro de evangelizacion en Nahualt.
Armando Partida.
Fig. 7
Antonio Ramirez, Cathedral of Santiago de los Caballeros 1678.
Oil on canvas.
In this metonymic view, the cathedral, represented here when it was still under construction, was an emblem for the collective piety of the city's inhabitants.

Fig. 8
Pre-conquest Temple.
Source: Codex-Azcatitlan